This post is by Adam Harris (University College London) who recently published a paper entitled: " Understanding the coherence of the severity effect and optimism phenomena: Lessons from attention ". The paper appeared in a special issue on the nature and consequences of optimism, guest-edited by Anneli Jefferson, Lisa Bortolotti, and Bojana Kuzmanovic. In this post, Adam (pictured below) offers a precis of his paper. Popular belief maintains that humans are prone to an almost universal optimistic bias, including a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of good outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of bad outcomes. Related research findings include (all references are in the paper [AH1] ): Wishful thinking . For example, estimates of the likelihood of a sports team winning being higher from that team’s supporters than neutral individuals; Unrealistic comparative optimism . People think they are less likely to experience negative events, such as cancer, than...
A blog at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and mental health